Wagner James Au reports on virtual worlds & VR

Thursday, July 31, 2014

Second Life and High Fidelity founder Philip Rosedale stopped by New World Notes to offer his thoughts on market adoption of virtual reality headsets, and it's a comment worth highlighting on its own:

The adoption period for a widely-desired inexpensive technology (like smartphones) to reach saturation (1 billion+) seems to now be at about 7 years. So the ramp will be between now and about 2021.

In other words, extrapolating that into a forecast, 1 billion VR headset owners within 7 years. The first iPhone model hit the market in 2007, and sure enough, in 2014, we are well over 1 billion iOS/Android smartphone owners around the world. (There's half a billion in China alone.) Virtual reality headsets (or HMDs) are being developed to sell at retail from around $100-300, so much cheaper than most smartphones. And to judge by the general "Wow" factor, anyone who tries VR is very likely to desire it.

But does that mean VR ownersip will reach a billion users in 7 years? I have some thoughts there:

I load into the world, immediately greeted by some of the absolute silkiest beats I've heard in a while. I'm a redheaded bartender of Irish origin by the name of Boyle, though my middle name might be "Stereotype" (mum was very postmodern like that.)

I'm briefed on my missions, both personal and professional, before I step out on deck to greet the other guests. My first conversation is polite but probing. I know that there are spies on board -- I'm one of them, and I have a strong interest in finding the others. I offer a passenger a tumbler of whiskey as she tells me about her career in Hollywood. She offers me her autograph but I politely decline before asking her if she'd heard anything about the local oil concerns who have been in fierce competition lately. Instead of exchanging autographs, we then exchange identification devices.

I overhear another conversation nearby. My coworker aboard this yacht, a smartly dressed and thin-lipped woman named Mary, has approached a wealthy European playboy and demanded...

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

/AskWomen, as the title suggests, is a virtual community where Reddit users can pseudonymously ask women their opinion on any imaginable subject, and thanks to that and the way it's moderated, it's become one of the best online communities for both men and women. We write a lot about how sexism has poisoned online culture (as here, and here) -- /AskWomen can and should become an important part of the cure.

How? For starters, because questions are asked through Reddit pseudonyms, anyone (mostly males, to judge by the questions) can pose a query without too much fear of embarrassment -- and because women on Reddit can reply through their own pseudonyms, they're able to give honest answers in relative safety. To amplify this advantage, /AskWomen's moderation rules prohibit (and remove) sexist user comments, which further encourages women to feel secure enough to share their full, unvarnished opinions. And as with all of Reddit, the Upvote/Downvote mechanic naturally pushes higher quality comments toward the top (and vice versa).

As you'd probably guess, with Reddit's user community skewing young, much of the /AskWomen questions are about sex and dating (and yes, penis size), but that's also one of its core values. A lot of online sexism seems to stem from very young men who feel confused, intimidated, and frustrated by the dark mysteries of dating, which often boils over into resentment. By its very nature, a virtual community like /AskWomen helps clear up much of that mystery, and hopefully, replace resentment with empathy. (For women, too, it must be enlightening to realize just how confused men can be on so many topics that seem common sense to them.)

The more I wonder about what Linden Lab has in store for SL 2, the more I wonder what exactly has kept so many players in Second Life itself. For SL 2 to be a success it will not only have to attract new users and veterans alike, but give them a reason to stick around -- and it's not as simple as it would be for just about any other MMO. There's no level caps to consider, no end-game content, no raids, no dungeons... But SL isn't a simple thing in the first place.

KZero's summation: "By 2018 we estimate total HMD unit sales of almost 39m globally. This equates to a cumulative total of 83m HMD unit sales over the five year period." In other words, 83 million head mounted display units, the core platform for virtual reality. Not having read the full report, I'm skeptical about the methodology used to forecast this number, which seems too high -- but also, not high enough:

There's good news for Sims players who have been worried about the number and variety of mods that will be available for The Sims 4 come September. Fans have already started modding the Create-a-Sim Demo released earlier this month, and you can download and install a plethora of new and tweaked content. There are custom animations, new eye textures, skins, clothes, and my favorite of the lot: A lightweight program that will let you recolor just about any piece of content from the demo to your liking.

If you want a complete list what's available, fan site SimNation is regularly updating theirs to include the latest and greatest custom content. These mods are built for the demo and it's hard to say how things will change once the full game is releases a little over a month from now, but even so it's absolutely a good sign for anyone (including myself) who was worried about how long it would take modders to fill the gap left by The Sims 4's apparent limitations.

"KEVIN. WHY DO YOU EVEN LIKE VIDEO GAMES. YOU ARE SO BAD AT THEM.” That's what a friend asked Kevin Simpson, the author of this piece, as he fumbled through one of that friend's favorite games. It's unclear whether or not Simpson's brain injury was diagnosed before or after this encounter, but he'd been feeling the injury's effects on functions like logic, time and direction for a while -- both in his gaming and his life.

Simpson recently shared his experiences as a gamer with a frontal lobe disorder and, much like the IGN article about gaming while color blind that I shared earlier this month, it's a very interesting read if you're looking for a different perspective on worlds and experiences many of us take for granted. He writes:

Ctrl+Shift+R

My main laptop has been in repairs, but when it's back and running, I'll be hitting this. Wizard Gynoid, as you probably know, is a longtime creator of SL installations full of mathematical concepts converted into tangible 3D: